


rest your bones with me

by kirkaut



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Established Relationship, Harry Hart Lives, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 09:31:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4620303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirkaut/pseuds/kirkaut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a terrible idea, truly, but Harry has made a habit of turning awful situations to his advantage. He's come back from the dead once already, after all. What's a second time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	rest your bones with me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nickygp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nickygp/gifts).



> written for the following prompt by Nickygp: "Harry coming back home to Eggsy after a particularly hard mission."
> 
> I thought to myself, well, after what happened at the church...what would be harder for Harry than to feel as though he was about to hurt Eggsy?

Ritchie Moscker was, for all intents and purposes, a Very Bad Man.

Harry could hear the effected capital letters every time Eggsy reassured him of this, despite the fact that the heavy mission dossier more than spoke for itself. Richard Steven Moscker had an official police record that would put a few crime lords to shame, and an unofficial transcript of his criminal activity that made it clear that he was downright dangerous.

In the past three years alone, he's been attributed to the assassination of no less than twenty-seven political figures of varying moral standing. In the five years worth of information intel has managed to scrape together in a relatively short period of time, well...Moscker's history began looking more like a documentation of genocide. Name after name, the numbers adding up.

Police officers felled by the quick hand of a scrawny, desperate twenty year old. Mobster lackies who met their end when they tried to intimidate. Mob _kings_ who died, choking on poison, on lack of oxygen, on their own blood, when Moscker climbed to the top of their ranks and slashed his way back down, just to revel in the fallout. Entire planes of civilians, hijacked and felled for the sake of killing a single target. Bodies in his wake everywhere he went, heedless of the destruction and only too happy to add to his ever growing body count, each kill tallied on the pale skin of his forearm like a trophy.

Four-hundred and seventy three marks, in all. A blackened mass of scorch marks all along his arm and worn with pride.

Kingsman has been tracking his quickly fading footprints for years, their intelligence limited to only a name—the ghost of a death merchant, slipping between their fingers and laughing maniacally all the while.

Now, though, they have a face to put to the name, and a rare lead. A chance, a real bloody chance, to bring the devil to his knees and make him pay for his crimes.

Merlin slides the folder to Harry, the set of his jaw troubled. Harry assumes it's to do with the insurmountable level of carnage that Moscker has doled out over the course of a half decade.

He assumes...incorrectly. That much becomes apparent when he flicks open the file and Moscker's face sneers upwards from a grainy two dimensional print.

Harry's breath catches in his throat, and Merlin makes a low noise of understanding. His fingers tighten against the edges of his clipboard, so firm the tablet makes a quiet noise of protest beneath the clench of them.

“My God,” Harry says, voice only slightly strangled despite the tightness in his throat. “He looks...Jesus bloody Christ.”

A jagged scar cuts through Moscker's right eyebrow, curving around the socket of his eye and onto his cheek in an ugly, thick line of tissue. His nose is lumped and crooked, flattened at the bridge in a way that implies the appendage his been broken multiple times and never set correctly. His jaw cocks off too far to the left, leaving him with an uneven bite, and there's another harsh ring of scar tissue that slits across the expanse of his throat.

But those blue-green eyes are nearly the same shade, the hair just as sandy blond and styled similarly, and if his jaw were centred and his nose straight...

“I know,” Merlin confirms, sounding weary and strained himself. “He bears an uncanny resemblance to Eggsy.”

'Uncanny' doesn't begin to describe it, Harry thinks dazedly, flicking through surveillance photos and satellite pictures of Moscker. In the right lighting, at the right angle, Harry feels as though he's looking at Eggsy; as if a nightmare has come to life and he's been tasked with the job of killing his own lover, evidence of his guilt laid out before him and Harry left with no other option but to put a bullet in his head.

He can't suppress the sudden urge to track Eggsy down on the manor's grounds where he's exercising with JB, can't quite quell the need to wrap him up in his arms and tuck him away far from the reaches of anyone who may hurt him. It's irrational, almost silly, but there are photographs in his hands where an apathetic mass murderer tilts his face into the sun just so, and looks so much like Eggsy that Harry's hands shake at the thought of carrying out this mission.

When he skims over Moscker's personal history, things only deteriorate further.

He was born in a rural town in Pennsylvania to Joseph and Maggie Moscker when the two were just barely in their twenties, young and in love until Joseph was killed in the US invasion of Iraq just seven months after the birth of their son. Maggie, desperate and alone, had remarried almost immediately, determined to provide a stable home life for her infant son.

The road to hell, as they say, is paved with good intentions.

Ritchie Moscker grew up under the heavy hand of his step-father, who was arrested more than his fair share for public intoxication, disturbing the peace, and a half dozen violent altercations at various sporting events. But somehow, despite his history of violence, a blind eye seemed to be turned when it came to the suspicious nature of Ritchie's numerous hospitalisations. A timeline of abuse, documented in broken limbs and bruises and child services inquiries that met a dead end despite the insurmountable evidence.

The young Ritchie was left to grow with rage slowly boiling up inside him and no end in sight. A variety of witness accounts from children whom he knew growing up, remembering with wariness Moscker's stormy presence, his cruelty with small animals, and his reclusive nature. All that animosity, that malicious intent, gathering up and spilling over one snowy February evening when a sobbing, hysterical Maggie called into the local police and reported that her son had stabbed her husband seventeen times and taken off into the blizzard outside.

She'd never seen him again, and her son went on to become one of the most prolific enemies Kingsman had ever encountered.

There had been no one, Harry realises with a pit in his stomach like a boulder, no one to take Moscker away and give him reprieve; not enough attention paid to an unhappy young man to give any hope at forestalling the dark path he'd eventually wandered down.

It was so easy to imagine Eggsy in the same position.

If he hadn't had Ryan and Jamal, if Daisy hadn't been born and curbed Dean's violent streak enough—just barely, but enough—it wasn't implausible that Eggsy could have ended up much in the same way. He'd had his own decently lengthy police file when Harry had gotten a hold of him in Holborn. Petty crimes, mostly, and punishments for refusing to give up information on his friends, and—no.

_No_ . Harry can't think on it any longer. Can't continue to imagine if he hadn't brought Eggsy to Kingsman, if Eggsy hadn't had his pillars of support and the motivation of his sister to be  _better_ .

He closes the file with a snap and pushes back his chair, standing in a fluid movement. “Thank you, Merlin,” he says, voice smooth and not betraying his distress. He can feel the tightness around his mouth, however, the way that it pulls his face into a moue of unhappiness. Merlin must see it, too, because he sighs through his nose and his brows wrinkle together with mild concern. Much appreciated as it is, Harry has no time for any overtures of genuine worry, because at the moment all he truly wants to do is wrap Eggsy in his arms and keep him there for as long as he's allowed.

He turns to go, but Merlin stops him.

“Harry,” he says, firm and cautious all at once. “If this...resemblance that Moscker bears to Eggsy is going to compromise the mission at all—”

“It won't,” Harry says, the assurance sharp even to his own ears. He forces his emotions to settle, even just minutely, and gentles his voice. “It won't, Merlin. I promise.”

Merlin's eyes flick over him and his mouth is still an unhappy, flat press of lips, but he gives one tight nod and turns his attention to his clipboard.

Dismissed, Harry strides from the room with purposefully even steps. The façade of calmness lasts only as long as he's in the confines of the manor's walls, but the moment he steps out onto the terrace and hears the chattering bark of Eggsy's laughter, the knot in his chest grows taut once more. His Oxfords scuttle along the stone, tripping on the raised edge of a brick coming out of place, and he braces a hand against the low sitting wall to keep himself upright.

He's shaking, he realizes, and presses his other hand against the barrier as well, the file crinkling between his fingers and roughened stone. He shuts his eyes and hangs his head between his shoulders, taking deep breaths of the cool autumn air in through his nose and willing the tremors away. The scar on his temple throbs suddenly, prickling up along the thickened tissue with an awareness that comes less and less these days.

He's no idea how long he stands there, attempting to regain his composure, but it's long enough that Eggsy emerges from wherever it was on the grounds he'd been lurking and comes across Harry. He hears the usual cadence of rubber soled trainers on the steps, the pause he takes near the top when he sees Harry, and the quick and purposeful steps that follow when Eggsy hastens to be by his side.

JB's nails need to be trimmed—Harry can hear them clacking on the terrace stone.

“Harry,” Eggsy says from Harry's left, voice pitched low and urgent. “You all right, love?” Fingers curl over the back of his neck, dipping beneath the starched edge of his collar, smoothing up from the first knob of his spine to the short hairs at his nape. He scratches his nails along the same path on his second run, fingers slipping a bit further into Harry's hair. Eggsy presses closer, cheek pressing into Harry's shoulder and his other hand slipping down to cover one of Harry's, fingertips finding the spaces in between his fingers and nudging in.

Harry forces his eyes open and glances down into the worried pinch of Eggsy's eyes as they peer up at him. His cheeks are lovely and flushed from the day's exertion and the chilly wind sweeping in across the country. Harry finds suddenly that he can't stand not having him in his arms, and goes about immediately rectifying the situation. He slips his hand out from beneath Eggsy's so that he can sweep the palm up his spine to press between his shoulder blades and draw him in. Eggsy comes easily enough, shuffling in and ducking his head so that his forehead is snugged against Harry's neck, eyelashes flickering against the skin. The two of them both are almost offensively tactile creatures, and it's no hardship to loop their arms around one another and cling tightly, to feel the staccato of Eggsy's heartbeat against his own chest and the scrape of his nails through his hair. Eggsy's thigh nudges between his own, twining their legs together.

Even JB seems to sense something is wrong, and leans heavily into Harry's leg, licking at the fabric of his trousers.

“What's going on, babe?” Eggsy asks again, voice muffled into the heavy material of Harry's tie. “I ain't seen you like this since...” he hesitates briefly, and continues, “in a while.”

'In a while,' Eggsy says, but Harry knows fine well that he means the countless sleepless nights they'd spent together at the beginning of their relationship, Harry wrenched from sleep and clammy with sweat. Eggsy's spent more than his fair share of evenings coaxing Harry into bed, reassuring him with words and touches that Harry was alive and well, that no fault lay with him for what occurred in Kentucky, and that he most certainly did not kill Eggsy in that church.

Harry's dreams about the church are always an agonizing mix of reality and his subconscious emotions, mixing the legitimate brutality he'd displayed with the appearance of those whom he holds dear. He's killed Roxy once or twice, split James in half himself about a dozen times, killed Merlin in the various brutal ways that they'd learned together during their own training. But the worst of all is the Eggsy in his nightmares, who always looks at Harry with that glimmer of hurt and shattered trust the way he'd done in toilet that houses Mr. Pickle, eyes sad and watery even as Harry strangles the life from him.

He never kills Eggsy with a weapon, in those dreams. Bare hands, always: strangling, eye gouging, shoving the flat of his palm against his nose so that the broken fragment of bone is driven into his brain. Once, he'd even dreamed he'd plunged his hand straight into Eggsy's chest and wrenched apart his sternum, fingers slipping through the jagged pieces of his skeleton to grip the muscle of his heart and crush it to a pulp.

He'd thrown himself from the dream when the last twitch had left Eggsy's body, chest flayed open and ruined on the chapel floor, deadened eyes still holding onto that chord of intense betrayal, and had promptly vomited to the side of their bed when he awoke.

Harry would do anything, would move Heaven and Earth, if it meant he would never see such a look of destruction in Eggsy's eyes again. Has vowed never to hurt Eggsy in that manner—in  _any_ manner—as long as he lives.

“I'm quite fine, my darling,” Harry murmurs into the bristle of Eggsy's hair, laying his cheek upon the strands and breathing in the familiar smell. “Nothing that can't wait to be explained until we're home.” He pulls away enough that Eggsy feels the need to shift back, but only goes far enough so that he may tilt their faces together and run his nose along the straight line of Eggsy's, mouth slipping along his cheek to come to a stop at the concerned furrow in Eggsy's forehead. He kisses at the wrinkle with an aching tenderness, deliberate and soft all at once.

Eggsy makes a small noise in the back of his throat and leans his face upwards, catching the corner of Harry's lips between his own. “Okay,” he agrees, and presses back in for a proper kiss. “Let's go home, then.”

Eggsy keeps his fingers firmly slotted between Harry's own, arms pressed tightly together, for the entirety of their journey back to the mews. He keeps casting worried little glances Harry's way when they walk through the manor, when they're seated beside one another on the bullet train, and when they climb into the taxi outside of the shop, but he doesn't let go. JB clambers into his lap when they're in the back of the cab, getting short grey fur all over his trousers, but he rubs a finger between the pug's eyes and lets him settle, shedding be damned. Eggsy leans his cheek into Harry's shoulder once more, fitting himself snugly against his side and burrowing in, as if he can get close enough that he might be absorbed into Harry himself.

Harry gazes down at him and feels his mouth turn into the smallest semblance of a smile, and then JB shifts on his legs and there's the crinkle of his mission dossier beneath his hind legs, and reality deadens the pleasantness of Eggsy's body against his own. His sigh isn't an audible thing—more just the hitch of his chest and the slump of his shoulders as he exhales, but Eggsy notices it all the same.

Eggsy ushers Harry and JB into the house with a thank you thrown over his shoulder towards the driver, who tips his fingers against his brow in a salute before taking his leave. Eggsy only relinquishes the clench of his fingers around Harry's when he edges him towards a chair at the head of the dining table, and even then his hands skim fretfully along Harry's shoulders before his touch leaves completely.

Harry lays the expanse of one hand against his face and sighs, rubbing at his forehead and the edges of his face before dragging his fingers down and around his mouth. The mission dossier makes a quiet slipping sound when he drops it onto the table, papers splaying ever so slightly from inside the folder. He stares down at them and listens to the sound of Eggsy bustling around in the kitchen, opening cupboards and clinking mugs together, filling the kettle with water and the electric hum of the heating coils.

Eggsy brews him his tea just to his liking, and sets the steaming mug in front of Harry, next to the file on Ritchie Moscker. His own hands curl around the plain white ceramic mug that he holds, but he makes no move to sip. The steam wafts up between them.

“What's wrong?” Eggsy asks again, eyes limpid with worry. “Harry, I need you to talk to me.”

Harry sighs again, much more loudly, and slides the folder over to Eggsy. “It's hardly a sentiment I can put into words,” he admits, and gestures for Eggsy to open the file. He does, but it takes a moment for him to drop his eyes from scanning Harry's face, down to the report below.

“Jesus,” he breathes after finishing the section that details Moscker's crimes. “This bloke's proper fucked, ain't he? Fuck, the _planes_ , man.”

“Keep reading,” Harry orders softly, and takes a bracing sip of tea. It scalds his tongue and the roof of his mouth. He scrapes his teeth along the abused muscle of his tongue and feels the sting, then tucks it against his gums.

Eggsy's eyes flicker from line to line, brow darkening with a scowl the further he delves into Moscker's history. He turns the page to the grainy photographs they have and stares at the images, hard.

Harry watches him carefully.

Eggsy blows a hard breath out through his nose and snaps the file shut, setting it back down on the table away from them both.

He says nothing for a moment. Then two. Then—

“That ain't me,” he says, and jabs a finger down onto the folder. He taps it three times for emphasis, and stares Harry down, eyes bright and alert. “You get that, yeah? He ain't my evil twin or nothing, love, he's just a cock with serious problems.” He pushes the folder even further away as he sidles close to Harry, chair scraping on the floor. He reaches out and frames Harry's face between his hands, thumbs running over the bags beneath his eyes. “That's not me,” he says again, this time on the cusp of a whisper. “I'm here. With you, cos you found me.”

“I rather think you found me,” Harry points out drily. “After all, you made that phone call.”

“We found each other, then,” Eggsy says, not to be dissuaded. “And I'm nothing like him, Harry. All that shit he did to animals when he were a kid?” Eggsy shudders. “I couldn't even run down a fox, me. He's not a good man, babe. Not nearly as handsome as some, besides.” He gives a crooked grin, one that's still tentative around the corners.

Harry doesn't laugh, which he knows Eggsy was hoping he would, but a bit of the tension does melt from his body when a breath shakes loose as he smiles, small but genuine. Eggsy winks, all cheek and charm, and darts in for a fast kiss.

“I'm not him,” he repeats into Harry's cheek. “And he ain't me, bruv. I've done a lot of shit in my time, but he's done worse. Don't feel bad for putting him down just because we's a bit similar, is all I'm saying.”

Harry hums. “I'll try my best,” he says. It falls flat and weak even to his own ears. Eggsy gives a soft little sigh and his eyes don't lose that tender, worried squint that says he knows Harry is just going to grit his teeth and bear it, no matter the emotional fallout.

“What say you and me,” Eggsy begins, looping his arms around Harry's neck, “go on upstairs and take your mind off this, huh?” A wicked little grin pulls up the corners of his mouth and he leans in to nuzzle at Harry's cheek with his nose. “I got some ideas on how to distract you.”

Harry feels interest stir below his belt, somewhere beneath the heavy rock of dread that's weighing down his stomach. He concentrates on the slow burn of arousal, desperate for the promised distraction. His hands find their way around the lovely dip of Eggsy's waist, slipping down to clench over the jutting bones of his hips. “Do you now?” he murmurs, and steals his way into Eggsy's mouth with a wet, open kiss.

“Fuck yeah,” Eggsy whispers, and crawls into Harry's lap. He takes the weight of him gladly, and lets the pressure of their bodies together push thoughts of Moscker from his mind.

 

~

 

The tentative peace Harry makes with the idea of putting a bullet into Moscker's head lasts only as long as it takes for him to actually come face to face with the bastard himself.

It's not for lack of trying on the part of Merlin and Eggsy, who've taken it upon themselves to constantly— _constantly_ \--remind Harry of just how much red Moscker carries in his ledger, and how many bodies he's left scattered across the earth in just a few short years. Harry's been over every minute detail for himself and needs no such reassurances on a strictly professional level, but on a personal one...

Well. He can't say he doesn't appreciate the sheer concern they've displayed towards his well-being in regards to this case, but they've begun to teeter into the land of 'excessive' more recently, with Eggsy trying (and failing) to casually drop into conversation statistics about Moscker's body count. Combined with Merlin's pointed remarks about the correlation of animal abuse and serial killers, Harry finds he's actually rather happy when the day of departure arrives and he's loading his personal belongings and his mission kit onto the private Kingsman jet that's bound for Moscker's ( _classified_ , Eggsy) location.

Eggsy hovers on the tarmac, looking tense and unhappy, arms crossed over his chest. He's in one of his many garish polo shirts and a pair of Kingsman issued trackies, feet still covered in what Harry suspects are his own slippers. It should be Eggsy's day off, which generally entails lounging about in the front room and eating a grotesque amount of take away while JB sleeps on his legs, but he's insisted on accompanying Harry to HQ to see him off.

Harry trots down the small flight of stairs to join Eggsy on the ground, and is immediately swept into a bone crushing hug.

“I know you says you're fine,” Eggsy grits from where his face is mashed into the side of Harry's face. “But babe, you gotta believe that it ain't me you're going off to blow to pieces. It's me you's coming home to, you get me?”

“I'm starting to feel more than a little insulted that you don't believe I can handle myself in situations such as this,” Harry says, only half-serious.

Eggsy gives a little growl of frustration and clutches at him tighter. “It ain't that, love, I swear it,” he promises, and pulls back enough to give Harry a hard kiss. “Just. I know how it feels, yeah, to think I'm about to watch you die.” He thumbs at the thick silver-pink scar that cuts over Harry's temple and splices apart his hairline. “Not exactly nice.”

Any irritation Harry's been harbouring dissipates at the feeling of Eggsy's fingers prodding at the scar, careful as ever. For as often as he's suffered nightmares about the disastrous day at the church, he knows Eggsy didn't fare much better in the months where Harry lay comatose in an American hospital, believed to be dead by the few remaining Kingsman agents. Merlin's notes on those lost weeks had been...thorough, and attentive to detail in a way that suggested the depth of his concern.

He slips a hand beneath Eggsy's polo, palming at the smooth and warm skin that covers the small of his back. “I am coming home to you,” he reaffirms, and dips their mouths together for a soft slotting of lips. “God help anyone who tries to keep me from doing so, darling.”

Moderately appeased, Eggsy leans up for one last kiss before playfully shoving Harry towards the jet. “Go on, you unprofessional shit,” he says, prodding into the sensitive spot to the left of Harry's navel. “Kill that arsehole, and I'll let you come back and kill mine, yeah?” He gives an exaggerated, raunchy wink.

“You are terrible,” Harry informs him, smiling a bit despite himself. “Truly, I am remiss as to what it is I see in you.”

“It's probably that you see yourself _in me_ ,” Eggsy grins, utterly proud of himself. The little berk.

“I'm leaving,” Harry informs him flatly, shaking his head in disdain despite the amusement bubbling up inside. “You tawdry little lech, away with you.” He waves a hand in a shooing motion as he ascends the stairs back into the cabin of the plane. Eggsy bounces on the balls of his feet, shuffling backwards on the tarmac, and blows a kiss to Harry as the door lifts and shuts with a soft hiss of hydraulics.

To his credit, Eggsy refrains from inundating Harry with texts on the flight, keeping to the occasional 'miss you' and a few tastefully framed pictures of JB looking slovenly and blissful in various patches of sunlight. Harry will never admit to it, but he hoards the pictures and texts that Eggsy sends him, keeps them saved to his mobile for those days when the world is a bit too loud, too sharp towards the edges. Loves having them to look back on when he's meant to be incommunicado, or when Eggsy's too deeply immersed in his own mission to be able to spare a moment or two to call.

The closer that the plane flies to Las Vegas—the last known whereabouts of Moscker, most recently time stamped from that very morning—the more uneasy Harry begins to feel, and he finds himself thumbing through the archive of Eggsy's correspondence, smiles crinkling at the corners of his eyes with every poorly typed profession of love and blurry selfie.

It's a temporary comfort, he finds, and one that evaporates quickly when he loses his tail on Moscker in the Bellagio hotel.

“Oh, bugger,” he mutters, glancing around the crowded lobby, teeming with slow moving tourists. The HUD of his glasses begins scanning the masses, using the facial recognition technology in an attempt to pick Moscker out of where ever he's gone to hide. The software flickers from face to face, cataloguing and disregarding those that don't match, and then—

A small gathering of bodies part, and Moscker stands in the space they leave behind.

He's staring right at Harry, a contemplative glint in his eye when their gazes catch.

Moscker grins, slow and wicked, and turns slowly on his heel, head jilting to the side in a manner that indicates he wants Harry to follow him. Against his better judgement, Harry does. His handgun jostles reassuringly against his ankle where it's holstered, a comforting back up to the Rainmaker he carries, hooked over his forearm.

Moscker strolls, casual and slow, through the decadent and expansive halls, neck craning around every now and then as if he's investigating the décor and architecture. The affected at-ease demeanour sets Harry on edge, just as he knows Moscker wishes it to.

“ _Harry_ , _”_ comes Merlin's voice, strained and worried over the glasses comms. _“I hope you know what you're doing.”_

“To be honest with you, Merlin,” he mutters, eyes intent on the slouching line of Moscker's shoulders. “I rather think it's out of my hands.” He takes a steadying breath through his nose. “Arthur, signing off until mission complete. Will reopen communication when the target has been eliminated.”

Merlin's protest is cut off by the press of two fingers against the bridge of his glasses frames, sending him into radio silence just in time for him to exit through the grandiose front doors of the hotel.

Moscker leans against a garish taxi cab, hands tucked into his pockets and chewing gum snapping obnoxiously between his teeth. He curls his lips back in a facsimile of a smile and thumps his elbow back against the car. “Need a ride?” he asks, voice rasping and guttural, the result of damaged vocal chords. The thick and knotted line of scar tissue across his neck ripples when he cocks his head to the side.

“If you'd be so kind,” Harry says, bowing his head slightly, and slips into the backseat of the taxi when Moscker opens the door for him.

It's a terrible idea, truly, but Harry has made a habit of turning awful situations to his advantage. He's come back from the dead once already, after all. What's a second time?

The bright lights and lively hum of the Las Vegas strip eventually flicker past and fade, the city giving way to an expanse of desert, littered with the occasional suburban community. Moscker drives and drives and drives, until he veers suddenly from the smooth asphalt of the road and into the gritty, dusty plain of the Nevada land. The car judders to a halt eventually, and Moscker twists the keys from the ignition but leaves the headlights on as he exits the driver's seat.

Harry takes a moment to unravel the binding around his umbrella, effectively turning off the safety, before he unbuckles his seatbelt and exits the vehicle himself. His feet kick up dust and sand, the puffing clouds nearly invisible except for where the moonlight casts through the particles.

Moscker stands in the beam of the headlights, face tilted towards the stars. The lights and shadows cast his face into an other-wordly grimace.”I have to say,” he muses, voice like gravel. “I'm impressed. By my estimates, you were tailing me for at least three hours before I caught on to you. Another two hours just to see what you would do.” He snaps his head to the side and grins, grotesque. “That's a new record. You should be proud of yourself.”

“Actually, it was seven hours,” Harry corrects him, tone mild. He feels a strange combination of relish and fear at the way Moscker's face darkens into a scowl, and reminds himself the sort of dangerous mind he's facing, how things like satisfaction must take a back seat to the necessity of alertness.

Moscker tsks in disappointment. “Seven hours,” he repeats, sounding absent-minded. “I shouldn't have expected anything less from you, Mr. Hart.”

Harry's blood runs cold.

“Oh, don't act so surprised,” Moscker laughs, turning to face Harry fully. The sound of his humour is an ugly, rattling thing. “Of course I figured out who you are, Mr. Hart. And so quickly, too! After all...” His smile sharpens, as does his gaze. Harry has never felt more like staring down into the face of evil itself than he does in this moment. Moscker looks very nearly reptilian in the washed-out lighting. “When you know just who to hack, it's amazing what you can drag up with a bit of facial recognition. Tell me,” he purrs, stepping closer. “Do you still feel the blood between your fingers? Their bones breaking underneath your hands? Does the chant of a hymnal sound the same to you, I wonder?”

The world around Harry seems to grind to a halt. What must only be a few seconds to pass between them feels like years, like an endless stretch of time that gapes ahead of him in the wake of Moscker's cruel ponderings.

“Who do I remind you of?” Moscker continues, getting even closer, growing more openly malicious with every step forward. “It must be someone that you care for, since you didn't take me out with a sniper shot. Not even right after you found me. No, instead, you followed me around for nine hours, to...what? Make sure I wasn't whoever it is I remind you of, right?” He jabs a pointed finger at Harry. “Right? So, who is it? Not your brother, no, you're a bit too old for that, aren't you? And it's someone who's still alive, so...your son, perhaps? Or, _oh!_ ” He barks out a laugh and jumps on the balls of his feet, sand scattering up into the air around him. “A _lover_! How salacious! A hot young thing, I bet.” He darts forward, right into Harry's space, and breathes hotly into the air next to his cheek. “I'll gut him and skin him like a pig once I'm done with you. Smear that pretty blood around, listen to him scream—”

“Enough,” Harry snarls, and shoves the hollowed tip of the Rainmaker into Moscker's gut, finger quick on the trigger.

Moscker's face is still twisted into a sneer when his body hits the earth.

The blood falls in a dark shower against the moonlit sand.

 

~

 

The house smells of Eggsy's home made chicken tikka when Harry shuffles up to the front step and unlocks the door after a long, miserable transatlantic flight, Moscker's blood a phantom shroud upon his skin. He'd spent his time compiling his mission report and uploading his glasses feed to his private files, as well as to Merlin's terminal for his own record keeping purposes.

JB's nails clack against the hall floors as he snorts and snuffles his way into the hollows of Harry's ankle, watery eyes peering up at him with recognition as his rump twitches back and forth with happiness.

Eggsy appears in the entrance to the kitchen, stepping away from the stove and wiping his hands on a dish towel. His eyes are soft and worried when he looks at Harry, but he makes no motion to step forward, despite the clear desire in his eyes to do so. “Heya, love,” he greets, arms crossing over his chest. He's wearing one of Harry's old t-shirts, he realizes, and he's fairly certain it's one that he'd thrown into the rubbish months ago in an attempt to clear space for Eggsy's clothing. “I missed you.”

Harry breathes out through his nose in a long, hard exhale, and slumps against the entryway to the dining room. He pulls off his glasses and pinches at the bridge of his nose, eyes scrunching tightly shut, and does his best to control his breathing. “Not that I don't appreciate the effort, darling, but I would actually greatly appreciate it if you were to come and give me a hug. As soon as possible would be best.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” Eggsy breathes. Harry opens his eyes in time to see Eggsy toss the towel down onto the floor and dart around the dining room table and chairs, barrelling into Harry and catching him around the middle with a vice grip.

He stumbles back a step or two with the vigour of his hug, but wraps his own arms around Eggsy in return, holding him close and breathing in the smell of his shampoo and the spice of the tikka.

“I were so fuckin' worried, babe,” Eggsy says, smearing the words and kisses up the line of his throat. “After your comms went dark and you didn't kick 'em back on until you'd got on the plane. Shit, Harry. I don't know what I'd do if—” He stops, breathing hard, and darts up for a quick press of their mouths.

Harry opens up to the kiss, their tongues slipping together briefly before they separate, foreheads tilting together and breath intermingling between them.

They stand there, pressed together from hips to shoulders, until the timer on the oven chimes and draws them apart. “I made you some tea,” Eggsy explains needlessly, for all that the smell in the air speaks for itself. “Thought you'd like something for when you got in.” Their noses skim together. “Let me feed you up, yeah?”

Harry lets Eggsy guide him towards the table and usher him into his usual chair, brushing a kiss over the hair at the crown of his head before bustling into the kitchen to take the tikka masala out of the oven. There's the heavy clank and rattle of dishes and silverware being drawn from their spaces in the cupboards, Eggsy placing them and two glasses of ice water at their seats.

The tikka masala looks and smells divine when Eggsy carefully transports it onto the hot pad on the table, keeping the pan from scalding the antique wood. A small bowl of white rice is quickly delivered alongside it, steaming and sticking together in a white lump. Harry's stomach lets out an embarrassingly loud burble. Eggsy grins at him and scoops a healthy portion of rice onto his plate, followed by an equally hearty bit of the chicken.

A notably smaller portion finds its way onto Eggsy's plate. Harry raises his eyebrows pointedly but Eggsy just rolls his eyes. “I know you, yeah? Probably didn't eat nothing once you started tailin' Moscker, and you definitely ain't had anything since you got on the plane.”

Harry's stomach lets out another telling rumble. “You may have a point,” he deigns to admit, picking up his fork, and tucks into his meal.

It is, as ever, exquisite. One of the more beneficial side effects of Eggsy having a bastard like Dean for a step-father, as well as a mum who was off working part-time jobs as often as she could find them, was that he learned fairly early on how to feed himself. For the most part there had been dinners that had cost him less than ten pound to make, but he'd taken to printing out and compiling a small sachet of recipes that he'd never had the opportunity to delve into until Kingsman supplied him with a steady income, allowing him to splurge on groceries.

Harry happily plays guinea pig to Eggsy's test dinners and enjoys them all, but he does admit that the chicken tikka masala laid out before him is a favourite.

Eggsy's ankle hooks around his own as they eat in companionable silence, Harry's heart feeling lighter at the easy touch even as his stomach grows warm and heavy with every bite.

Eventually his hunger is satiated, and when he attempts to clear the dishes, Eggsy keeps him planted in his chair with a firm hand against his shoulder. “Let me take care of you,” he insists, curling his fingers into the hair at Harry's nape when he opens up his mouth to protest. “You've had a bit of a rough one, yeah? Just...let me do this, love.”

He feels like a lazy sod, not helping to sort the dishes out—Eggsy won't even let him _dry—_ but he sips carefully at the steaming mug of decaffeinated coffee that Eggsy had set in front of him, made to his exact specifications.

The sound of running water stops, and Harry turns around to watch Eggsy begin rubbing at the scrubbed and rinsed dishes with a clean towel, the muscles in his shoulders and arms bunching attractively against the threadbare material of the shirt he wears. He's overcome suddenly with an innate fondness and smiles softly, and finds that he can no longer resist the urge to set his cuppa aside and stand, crossing to Eggsy and slipping his arms around his waist.

Eggsy laughs when Harry nestles into his neck, still drying off their silverware, but doesn't say a word.

The way he leans back into Harry's embrace says far more than any words could ever manage.

When all the dishes are cleaned and set aside, Eggsy slips his wrinkled fingers over the coarse hair that smatters over Harry's wrists, fingers circling and holding on, index on his pulse point. “I was thinking you could do with a bath, yeah?” he suggests, tilting his mouth up so that he can nibble on the hinge of Harry's jaw.

“As long as you're there to join me,” Harry says, slipping a few suggestive fingers beneath the elastic waistband of Eggsy's pyjama pants. The silky slip of skin against the grooves of his fingers makes him even hungrier for contact, and it isn't long until his entire hand is submerged beneath the soft cotton fabric. “I think I would be amenable to such a thing.”

Eggsy pecks a few, scattered kisses across Harry's jaw, up towards his ear, and then pulls away enough to turn around in his arms. Hands still linked together, he walks backwards through the dining area, tugging Harry along behind him. They traverse the stairs that way, Eggsy bumping his heels against the edges of the steps as he moves backwards, but he doesn't seem to wish to break the eye contact that he and Harry are holding, drinking him in with those warm, mossy eyes.

They manage their way into the master bath and eventually are forced to separate when Eggsy goes to the linen cupboard to grab two towels, so Harry sets himself on the edge of his indulgently enormous tub and twists at the taps, rolling up his sleeve so that he can hold his hand under the running water until the temperature is to his liking and stoppers the drain. The next thing he does is pour a decent amount of foaming bath gel beneath the cascade of water, fragrant lavender wafting up as suds immediately form.

He turns around and nearly swallows his tongue when he sees that Eggsy has already stripped and stands on the tiled floor, utterly starkers and grinning at Harry's raised brows. “You been gone nearly a week, babe,” he reminds Harry, crossing to stand between his splayed knees. His cock is jutting up and out, hard but not painfully so, and all Harry would have to do is crane his neck down a little to take him into his mouth.

Hands work and knead at the thickly formed knots of muscle in Harry's shoulders, sending him slumping forward. The head of Eggsy's cock bumps against his cheek, silky and hot, and Harry presses a tonguing kiss to it if only to hear the hitching inhale that Eggsy takes when he does so. Eggsy lets him indulge in a few sucking pulls before he twitches his hips back, effectively pulling himself out of Harry's mouth. “None of that just yet,” he laughs breathily, twisting his fingers into Harry's hair and pulling firmly. “I ain't got you naked yet, have I?”

“Easily remedied,” Harry informs, and stands in one smooth motion, fingers working at his tie while Eggsy begins pulling the buttons on his shirt free.

A small puddle of expensive Kevlar-silk blend forms on the bathroom floor, but Harry is too busy following Eggsy into the steaming bath to pay any mind to potential wrinkles. He slips into the open vee of Eggsy's legs, his prick a solid presence against the small of Harry's back, and curls his hands around the jutting bone of Eggsy's ankles to anchor them together.

One arm slips around his torso while the other extends towards the small shelf that's perched to the right of them, fishing around for a small plastic cup that he uses to pour water over Harry's curls, fingers sifting through the water logged hair and combing it back. Harry's eyes flicker shut against the sensation, muscles he hadn't even realised were tensed, relaxing all of a sudden.

Once he's been thoroughly drenched, there's the muted click and the sound of shampoo being squirted out into Eggsy's hand, the familiar spice of Harry's shampoo filling the air before it's applied to his head and lathered in by talented, loving fingers that scritch and scratch at his scalp in a way that threatens to lull him to sleep.

Eggsy chatters all the while, narrating the idle inactivity of his week. He tells Harry about the newest round of proposals going through the Kingsman trials, about how Roxy's dog has taken to Merlin like a bad smell, about how Daisy's latest adventure in her newly discovered mobility, unnaturally fast even on her short little legs.

He murmurs into the shell of Harry's ear, quiet and slow, about how much he missed him while he was away. How proud he is that Harry was able to go through with the mission because he knows that he was struggling with it, despite the brave front Harry had put forward. That he knows it had to have been almost impossibly difficult for Harry to follow through with the kill order, but that Moscker wasn't a person whose surrender would have been effective by any means. The sheer number of times he'd managed to break out of high security prisons spoke to that.

“I'm proud of you,” Eggsy whispers as he washes the last of the soap from Harry's hair. “So fuckin' proud, babe, all the time. You get that, yeah? I love you so much.”

The love Harry has for Eggsy burbles up suddenly in his chest, threatening to overwhelm him completely. He waits until the last dregs of soapy water have trickled from his face before he intentionally disengages their hold on one another and rises to his knees, twisting around to press Eggsy back into the porcelain wall of the tub and swallow his mouth in a deep, searing kiss.

Eggsy's hands slip up his back, the path eased by the glide of water between skin, and opens his mouth up easily, tongues sliding together.

Harry wants to press closer, wants to climb inside of Eggsy. He wants to settle down on top of him and lay there until the very flesh of them melds together, until their skeletons tangle and there's no hope of them ever being separated.

Eggsy tugs Harry back by the hair, leaving only enough room between their mouths so that he can breathe, “Let's get us to the bed, love,” before darting up for another furtive kiss.

It's amazing that they manage to only displace a litre or so of water in their haste to clamour out of the tub, feet utterly without traction on the tile. They nearly collapse into a heap on the bathroom floor at one point, but Harry's years of exquisite balance training saves them and he instead presses Eggsy into the vanity bench, fingers curved around the sharp edge of his jaw while he holds their mouths together.

The path to the bed is a slippery one, fraught with sliding mis-steps and lengthy pauses for indulgent kissing, but eventually Harry tumbles back against the comfortable jersey cotton of their bedsheets, Eggsy a heavy and warm weight atop him. His fingers trail down Eggsy's spine, tracing over the vertebrae, down between the crease of his arse and down to his hole. He means only to brush his finger over, to apply a small amount of pressure, but his finger presses in easily. It's almost as if—

“May have taken care of that earlier,” Eggsy breathes somewhere around Harry's collarbone, teeth biting and leaving marks in the thinly stretched skin. “Soon as I knew you was coming home. Put the tea in the oven and...y'know.”

Harry's cock gives a violent twitch at the mental images Eggsy's statement provides, and he growls an inarticulate and embarrassing noise out from the back of his throat as his finger presses in all the way to the first knuckle, Eggsy's body a hot clench around him.

Eggsy moans and shivers in his arms, pushing himself up on his hands to give himself better leverage to rock back into Harry's touch. He leans over to the bedside table where they store their lubricant and condoms (as well as the occasional bedroom toy) and presses the tube of lube into Harry's chest, still writhing back onto his hand.

He regretfully withdraws from Eggsy's body, but only long enough that he can drizzle the slick over his fingers, getting them wet and glistening, and presses his index and middle digits back into his arse. Eggsy takes him readily, greedily, inhaling sharply through his nose and driving his hips back with a long, drawn out swear. He grabs the bottle for himself, squirting a healthy dollop into the cup of his palm, and rings his hand around the base of Harry's cock, twisting up and smearing lube up the shaft, thumbing into the foreskin and pressing against the fat head.

“Want you in me,” Eggsy grits out, working his hand up and down quickly. “Fuck, Harry, need you so fuckin' much.”

“Yes,” Harry snarls, and pulls his fingers out so that he can grip at Eggsy's hips with sticky fingers as the younger man shifts up onto his knees, lining their bodies up just right.

It's a tighter squeeze than Harry is used to—he usually takes to stretching Eggsy with three fingers—but desperation makes him quick to press up between Eggsy's arse cheeks, thrusting up in one hard motion so that he bottoms out completely in no time at all.

“Yeah,” Eggsy gasps, planting his hands on Harry's chest and undulating on top of him. Harry slides his hands from the well toned muscles of his sides to the thick cord of his thighs, feeling every twitch and strain as Eggsy lifts and drops his body down into Harry's lap, riding him for all that he's worth.

He lifts his knees to brace back against Eggsy, offering a bit of support even as he curves his hands around to the swell of his arse and grips in, holding on tightly and massaging at the flesh in his palms. He uses that leverage to drag Eggsy up and down a bit faster, a bit harder, until the bed frame starts to nudge against the wall with every thrust.

Eggsy reaches down and back and pulls Harry's hands away, presses them into the space above his head where the pillow tufts and bunches into a downy pile. He holds him down, bearing as much weight as he can onto Harry's arms, and slows his pace to a torturous writhe.

Harry loves this, the slow and steady burn towards orgasm, but tonight there's something inside of him that feels desperate and needy, wanting Eggsy as close as he can get him, wants to punch his hips upwards with sharp thrusts, wants fast and frantic but doesn't know _why_.

But Eggsy—perfect, gorgeous, darling Eggsy—knows Harry almost better than he knows himself, and bends forwards until their noses are nearly touching, mouths skimming together.

“I'm still here,” he whispers, hips dying down to a gentle rocking motion. “It weren't me you done in, babe. I'm right here, yeah?” His hips swivel down. “Right fuckin' here, Harry.”

“Let go of my arms,” Harry requests, and Eggsy obeys immediately, brow furrowing only slightly. Harry wraps his one arm around Eggsy's back and pushes them into a seated position with the other, chests pressed together and sweat matting at the sparse hair the both of them posses on their torsos. He bears Eggsy down into his lap, holding their bodies together for a moment before he carefully tumbles Eggsy back into the mattress, switching their positions.

Eggsy's heels nudge into the small of his back once they've sorted themselves out, kicking in slightly. “I'm here,” Eggsy says again, and sucks a mark into Harry's neck. “Right here, babe. Fuck me hard as you want, make me remember for days just whose got me.”

“Yes,” Harry snarls, and drives forward with a hard snap of his hips. “Yes, you lovely thing, you're all mine, aren't you?”

Eggsy hums in agreement, teeth digging into his bottom lip as Harry fucks into him, eyes fluttering shut and cheeks rouging gorgeously.

“You've no idea,” Harry tells him, sliding his hand across the expanse of Eggsy's ribcage, thumb digging into old scars. “My God, Eggsy, no idea how much you mean to me. How much I need you.” He ducks down and scrapes his teeth over a nipple, curls an arm under Eggsy's arm and back to curve his hand over his shoulder, giving him even more leverage to pound into Eggsy's tight and willing body. “What I would do if anyone tried to take you from me. I _adore_ you.”

“I'd never let 'em take me,” Eggsy swears, tilting his hips up as much as he can to meet the powerful stride of Harry's. “Ain't never letting no one keep you from me again, Harry. I'd kill them first, I swear it.”

It's a bit macabre for dirty talk, Harry realises in a dimly lit recess of his brain that's still capable of cognizant thought, but his more immediate reaction is to bite a lurid mark into the column of Eggsy's neck, in a spot that will be impossible to cover, short of wearing a scarf. Eggsy doesn't shy away from the attention, however. He never has; he's always luxuriated in the visible reminders of his relationship with Harry, be it the lock screen on his phone, the way he sometimes steals one of Harry's ties, or the love bites that litter his body, dark and blatant and possessive.

“Never gonna leave you, Harry,” Eggsy promises with an arch of his neck, head pressing back into the pillow. His breath comes fast, rasping out on punchy exhales, signs that he's close to coming. “Gonna stay as long as you'll have me. Fuck, _fuck_ , there, yeah, oh shit. Don't fucking stop, love.”

Harry hitches Eggsy's legs higher, knees pressing into his ribs, and fucks in short, hard bursts. “Marry me,” he says, and curls a hand around Eggsy's cock.

“Oh, _shit_ ,” Eggsy chokes, eyes wide, and comes with a bitten off cry.

His body shakes and trembles its way through orgasm, and the clutch and ripple of his internal muscles proves to be too much. Harry manages only a half dozen more thrusts before he succumbs himself, collapsing onto Eggsy with a wrenching gasp of his name.

They're both still shivering with the aftershocks when Eggsy swallows audibly and asks, “D'you mean it?”

He sounds shaky, unsure; vulnerable in a way that he rarely allows himself to be, even for Harry.

Harry's aware that the few seconds it takes him to catch his breath must be an agonizing stretch of time for Eggsy to endure, but he can hardly formulate a coherent though, much less a marriage proposal, until the oxygen begins to circulate in his brain once more.

“Don't be ridiculous,” he begins, which in retrospect is a mistake. Eggsy stiffens immediately beneath him, eyes shuttering and the tentative happiness draining from his features. “Of course I meant it.”

“Oh,” Eggsy says, nearly without inflection. His lips press together as his eyes shut, mouth trembling with the effort not to burst into a wide grin. “Yeah, alright.”

Harry's heart feels as though it skips a beat or two or twenty, joy thundering through his veins in place of blood, and it's a considerable effort to heave himself up off of the bed and extract himself from the tangle of their bodies. He manages, eventually, but his legs are shaky and feel too long, too unsteady, as he crosses to the large chest of drawers that houses most of his clothing.

The sock drawer opens easily, and he prises the false bottom up so that he can reach in and grasp at the well-worn velvet casing of a small, flat jewellery box. He turns, the box trembling in hands that are shaking with either the tremors of recent orgasm or the onslaught of nerves. Eggsy props himself up onto his elbows as Harry approaches, looking lovely and debauched, semen streaked up his chest and face still flushed and sweaty.

Harry crouches next to the bed in an approximation of a kneel, and opens the box with a quiet creak and gentle snap. His grandfather's ring lays upon a bed of silk fabric, scuffed from years of dedicated wear, white gold and glinting in the light of their lamps.

“You must know,” Harry begins, wishing to make this more serious than his initial request. “That you are everything to me. You've brought such warmth into my life, Eggsy, and I wish to keep you there for as long as you'll have me.” He pinches the ring between his fingers and holds it up between them. “Will you marry me?”

Eggsy snorts, but his eyes are bright and teary, and his lips are stretched so far into a grin that it seems nearly painful. “Like it's even a fucking question, bruv,” he chides, and reaches out with his left hand, ring finger hooking into the metal loop.

Harry slides it down until it brushes into the knuckle, and rubs his thumb across the combination of gold and skin. It's a bit loose on Eggsy's fingers, and they'll need to have it resized, but nothing looks more lovely than the sight of his ring on Eggsy's fingers.

Except, of course, the sight of Eggsy naked and happy on their bed, wearing his ring. Harry's cock twitches with interest, his libido perking up despite having only just come.

All the same, he rises up and presses Eggsy down into the mattress. “Shall you be Eggsy Hart, I wonder?” he says, and twines their hands together if only to feel the interruption of the ring against his skin. “Or shall I be Harry Unwin?”

Eggsy makes a pondering sound, and then snorts, loud and violent. “Oh, fuck,” he laughs, chest hitching with his giggles. “Nah, man, we can't do that. We's gonna be Harry and Gary, ain't we? Gary and Harry. I'd best to keep to Unwin, I think. No offense, babe,” he adds, still chuckling to himself.

“Gary Hart,” Harry muses, “it does have a nice sound to it.”

Eggsy waffs a pillow at his face, laughing brightly.

The ring grows warm between their hands, like a promise to be kept.

 

 

 


End file.
